House tackles prison overcrowdingLITTLE ROCK — In the months leading to this session, members knew prison overcrowding in our state would be an issue that would demand due diligence. On average, there are 2,500 state prisoners being held in county jails waiting for beds at a state facility. And all total our state prisons are holding a thousand more inmates than they were designed to accommodate. Original proposals brought before the legislature during the interim suggested b...

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State House of RepresentativesThe Courier Your Messenger For The River Valley

Can you smell the coffee?CONWAY — Several years ago my daughter Nanci and I were talking about her brother, who was doing some things we did not feel would be in his long-term best interests, and she came out with this: “He needs to wake up and smell the coffee.” Of course this saying has been around for countless years, but it’s not one that we hear too often. It means to get a grip, accept reality, and then take action that will produce desired results. This is what...

Glib 'happy talk'When Alfred E. Neuman said “What me worry?” on the cover of Mad magazine, it was funny. But this message was not nearly as funny coming from President Barack Obama and his National Security Advisor, Susan Rice. In a musical comedy, it would be hilarious to have the president send out his “happy talk” message by someone whose credibility was already thoroughly discredited by her serial lies on television about the Benghazi terrorist attack in 2...

Captain Legislature’s unneeded rescueArkansas is now a Republican state, and there is a strain in Republicanism (and in the Democratic Party, and in human nature in general) that seeks to assert power. It has already happened once in a big way this legislative session. I’m referring to Senate Bill 202, which makes it illegal for communities to create their own classes of citizens protected from discrimination. It passed easily in both houses. Gov. Asa Hutchinson opposed the bill ...

State struggling over King-Lee fightLITTLE ROCK — Before Arkansas lawmakers convened for this year’s legislative session, they were preparing for protracted debates over the future of the state’s Medicaid expansion, a middle-class tax cut plan and an overcrowded prison system. Few could have predicted that the most heated fight would come over whether a Confederate general and a civil rights icon should be commemorated on the same day. The debate over Arkansas’ status as one of ...

'Big brother' legislationConservative politicians get themselves elected by preaching limited government, local control and individual freedom, but when they get a chance to govern, they often forget their principles and start passing laws that would, in theory, make liberals proud. A prime example exists in the form of Senate Bill 202, which cleared the Republican-controlled Legislature last week (by 24-8 in the Senate and 58-21 in the House) and now goes to the gove...

Regular Session enters sixth weekLITTLE ROCK — House committees have heard an increasing amount of proposed legislation as we now enter our sixth week of the Regular Session. This week we began to address overcrowding in our state prisons in terms of funding. Currently, over 15,000 inmates are in our facilities designed to hold just 14,330. Another 2,500 inmates are awaiting transfer to a state prison but being held in a county jail. The House passed a supplemental appropriat...

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State House of RepresentativesThe Courier Your Messenger For The River Valley

Senate OKs tax reductionLITTLE ROCK — The Senate gave final approval to a broad income tax reduction proposed by the governor, which will save middle class wage earners about $102 million a year when it takes full effect. Considering it will benefit an estimated 600,000 people, it is likely to be the signature accomplishment of the 2015 legislative session. Besides reducing income tax rates for people who earn between $21,000 and $75,000 a year, it also exempts 40 pe...

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State Capitol Week in ReviewThe Courier Your Messenger For The River Valley

The ultimate enemy of ISISThe president’s request for the authorization to use military force against the Islamic State has landed in a Congress as divided as the country. That division was mirrored in the disparate receptions Obama’s resolution received from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. To the Times, Obama’s AUMF is “alarmingly broad. It does not limit the battlefield to Syria and Iraq.” This would give the White House “virtually unrestricted power ...

The importance of perceptionCONWAY — You probably have heard the saying, “What is one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Boy, have I got a story to tell you today that points up just how true this is. The bottom line of what I am saying is that “PERCEPTION” is very important. It is often how we perceive a person, a performance or an event that determines the value we place on them. Here is an example that illustrates what I am saying: “In Washington, D.C., at a Metr...

Heart-shaped loveIn grammar school, Valentine’s Day meant wrapping a shoe box with brown craft paper, cutting a slot in the top for cards to drop in and decorating the outside of the box with hearts and cupids. Store-bought Valentines were labeled the night before and carefully taken to school to be given away. When the big day came, it wasn’t only if you received Valentines that counted, it was from whom, and if they gave you your card first that mattered. Be...

What makes Rand Paul strangeSen. Rand Paul believes that vaccinating children should be up to the parents, an increasingly unpopular view after recent outbreaks of measles, mumps and other diseases. And throwing a newt’s eye of quack science into the vat, the Kentucky Republican promotes the myth that these shots put children at risk. The political results have been toil and trouble. It’s not easy being a politician and a principled libertarian. One who believes in the p...

Measles, vaccines and autismThe current controversy over whether parents should be forced to have their children vaccinated for measles is one of the painful signs of our times. Measles was virtually wiped out in the United States, years ago. Why the resurgence of this disease now? The short answer is that false claims, based on other false claims, led many parents to stop getting their children vaccinated against measles. The key false claim was that the vaccine for mea...

Governor, enjoy this while it lastsWe are witnessing the smoothest legislative session in recent memory, thanks to its placement on history’s timeline and the political skills of the state’s leadership, particularly Gov. Asa Hutchinson. He should enjoy this while it lasts. I say it’s the smoothest because of what it could have been. Going into the session, the debate over the private option threatened to dominate the session. The program, which uses federal Medicaid dollars to ...

Citizens Commission's impactWhat really did we expect when we passed Issue No. 3 in the November general election? Now that it’s being implemented as Amendment 94 to the Arkansas Constitution, some suggest that we the people didn’t know what we were doing. Granted, Issue No. 3 was complicated. The full bill, referred to us by the Legislature as House Joint Resolution 1009, was 22 pages and more than 7,500 words in length, some of which deleted previous laws. So naturally...

Hyphenated-nationAs if we aren’t already divided enough by race, class, gender, political party, economic status and sexual orientation, the federal government is reportedly thinking about creating a new category of Americans just in time for the next census. According to the Associated Press, “The U.S. Census Bureau will test the new Middle East-North Africa classification for possible inclusion on the 2020 census if it gets positive feedback about the propos...

The race is on (Feb. 8, 2015)Editor’s note: Will Berry is a member of the board of directors for the RussVegas Half Marathon and Relay. He will write a column about various topics relating to the half-marathon in the weeks leading up to the April 10-11 event. This week he did a Q & A with two of the winners from last year’s event. Carson Miller, 19, of Dover was the 2014 RussVegas Overall Winner with a time of 1:18:52. How long have you been running? I ran my first race w...

Larger fights may loom in sessionLITTLE ROCK — Arkansas lawmakers made quick work of the two biggest issues facing them this year: approving a $102 million tax cut and keeping the state’s compromise Medicaid expansion alive another year. That doesn’t guarantee smooth sailing for the remainder of a legislative session. Questions about the state’s lottery, prison overcrowding and a potential push for additional tax cuts could complicate the legislative leaders’ efforts for a re...

Computer science picks up speedLITTLE ROCK — Last week was our third full week into the legislative session. Our legislators have worked extremely hard and accomplished key milestones in our effort to create more jobs in Arkansas. Our plan to offer computer science classes in every high school in Arkansas passed the House and is now on to the state Senate. This is exciting news for Arkansas’s students and for the future of our state. Over the next decade, it’s estimated tha...

Several issues still before usLITTLE ROCK — In less than a month’s time, this General Assembly has tackled tax cuts, health care, and made significant advancements in education. On Friday, Governor Hutchinson signed a bill to lower income tax in our state by 1 percent. This will amount to a savings of around $300 a year for a family making $50,000. It directly affects 600,000 taxpayers making between $21,000 and $75,000 a year. The other big development this week came when...

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State House of RepresentativesThe Courier Your Messenger For The River Valley